Tony Abbott, the prime minister, likes to say that Australia is a land of cheap energy and he’s half right. It doesn’t cost much to shovel a tonne of coal into a boiler and generate steam and put that into a turbine to generate electricity. The problem for Australian consumers (and voters) comes in the cost of delivery of those electrons – through the transmission and distribution networks, and from retail costs and taxes. This is the cost which is driving households to take up rooftop solar, in such proportions that the level of rooftop solar is forecast by the government’s own modellers, and by private groups such as Bloomberg New Energy Finance, to rise sixfold over the next decade. Households are tipped to spend up to $30bn on rooftop modules. Last week, the WA Independent market Operator forecast that 75% of detached and semi detached dwellings, and 90% of commercial businesses could have rooftop solar by 2023/24. The impact on Queensland’s markets last week is one of the reasons why utilities, generators and electricity retailers in particular want to slow down the rollout of solar. The gyrations of wholesale power prices are rarely reflected in consumer power bills. But let’s imagine that the wholesale price of electricity fell to zero and stayed there, and that the benefits were passed on to consumers. In effect, that coal-fired energy suddenly became free. Could it then compete with rooftop solar? The answer is no. Just the network charges and the retailer charges alone add up to more than 19c/kWh, according to estimates by the Australian energy market commissioner. According to industry estimates, solar ranges from 12c/kWh to 18c/kWh, depending on solar resources of the area, Those costs are forecast to come down even further, to around 10c/kWh and lower. Read full article here: lm.facebook/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftheguardian%2Fcommentisfree%2F2014%2Fjul%2F07%2Fsolar-has-won-even-if-coal-were-free-to-burn-power-stations-couldnt-compete&h=8AQEPLXUV&enc=AZNnxBjMpghpCu9x6XF4Oq7_WLhTGDsAJNjSy2RFOAW-rPgQzC3u17xi3IIiU5oXKsQdNWH2ReraAly4ZTj7HAEJfB-LpHAEEmI6EqIafyvqXyhpXZgSLv0m59zMyhtGitbYGLBao2EZiUPjRkdiHXGajnlyqF-nVfe7r3vIerd8Qw&s=1
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 01:03:57 +0000
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